Tag: Lucky Find

Lucky Find: Find A Grave to American Patriot and Mayflower

Earlier, I wrote about Find A Grave and the problem with unsourced facts that are so common online. This does not mean that we don’t do research online, however! I want to tell you about a Lucky Find for me, which started with Find A Grave.

Ruth Ann Smith is my 3rd great grandmother. She was born in 1842 and died in 1881. She married Matthew Gooding Reed. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name is Reed. Several years ago, I didn’t know a lot about her, and was not having any luck with the wide net search of ancestry, and was getting frustrated. I decided to check out Find A Grave for clues. I use the clues on Find A Grave as a hint to find other sources and facts. (I have since learned a lot more about specific, targeted search tactics online.)

However, when I found the Find A Grave memorial for Ruth Ann Smith, I was greeted with this photo of a stone monument at her gravesite:

46871009_127070594198

(Find A Grave memorial # 46871009 for Ruth Ann Smith, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/46871009/ruth-ann-reed, accessed in 2012 by Mark Cross)

I backed up, hit the reload button, and checked again. Wow! I had never heard of George Soule, but the Mayflower was exciting!

Thus began a long road of research, that I am so glad I took steps on. I found a couple of distant cousins who placed the stone monument at her gravesite. The monument itself is not acceptable as proof for the Mayflower Society, but evidence behind it is. The cousins shared with me some newspaper articles about their placing the monument in Nebraska, and two cousins shared with me a copy of their accepted application for the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, with membership numbers, that I could use.

From Ruth Ann Smith, I am descended from Solon Reed, and my cousins were descended from siblings of Solon. But I found out I do not need to prove the entire line to George Soule; from Ruth Ann Smith up to George Soule has already been proven, assisted with the copy of the approved membership applications my distant cousins sent me. All I had to do was prove from Ruth Ann Smith down to me! Once I did so, I was accepted into the General Society of Mayflower Descendants! My mom and my sisters have also joined, and some cousins on mom’s side as well. George Soule, Mayflower pilgrim, is my 10th great grandfather. We are looking forward to the 400 Anniversary in 2020!

One cousin also sent me a copy of her DAR application as well. It seems our ancestors had a rather fortuitous marriage; the ancestors of Ruth Ann Smith lead to George Soule, a Mayflower passenger, and the ancestors of her husband Matthew Gooding Reed lead to John Lecky, who fought in the American Revolutionary War! John Lecky is my 6th great grandfather, born in 1744 in Scotland, and since he fought for American Independence, he is a Patriot that qualifies his descendants for membership in either the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) or the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR).

I sent the documents to my mom so she could work with the historians of her local DAR chapter to join, and once she was in, I started my application for the SAR, and was accepted.

So, if there are any other cousins out there that are descendants of Matthew Gooding Reed and Ruth Ann Smith, you qualify for membership in BOTH the DAR/SAR and the Mayflower Society! If this is you, contact me and I can help you get started. Similarly, if you are descended from one of the ancestors of either Matthew or Ruth Ann, you may still be related and qualify for membership in one of these lineage societies. If you have questions, let me know.

I want to point out that the stone monument photo on Find A Grave is not the proof I needed. But it was definitely a clue that I could use to proceed! A Lucky Find for sure!

 

Lucky Find: Behrman family tree to Passenger List

My great grandmother Frieda Behrman Cross hand wrote a family tree years ago. I somehow got a copy of it. I think she may have written out the family tree from memory. She may have used an old Family Bible as a resource, but if so, no one knows where that Family Bible was, or where it is today.

Of course, there were no sources. It was just a list of families, mother and father with children, for several generations.

But the Lucky Find was this; she wrote when her father’s family immigrated to America. She was born in America, and so was a natural born US Citizen. But her father sailed to America when he was only 6 years old, when the family all came together. She wrote the year of immigration as 1857. Somehow, the family had forgotten about this nice little fact. We knew German ancestors were part of our family tree, but who came to America and when? No one knew.

Great grandma Frieda wrote the family all together, which would have been her grandparents, her father and his siblings, as coming to America in 1857. That’s the only detail I had.

I did a search online, and on ancestry I found this little gem: the family sailed to America from Germany and arrived on 3 Oct. 1857.

NYM237_179-0243

[Ancestry.com, New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010), Ancestry.com, Year: 1857; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Microfilm Roll: Roll 179; Line: 38; List Number: 1173.]

And there we are, beginning on line 38, we get the listing of the same family that great grandma wrote in her family tree. Line 38 is Johann Behrmann, also known as John, Frieda’s grandfather, and a few lines below at the age of 6 is another Johann Behrmann, the father of Frieda, born in 1851 and so 6 years old in 1857.

They left Hanover, Germany, and their point of departure by sea was Bremen, Germany, and they arrived in New York on 3 Oct. 1857 aboard the Adonis, quite a name for a ship! With a little searching online, I can find other information about the Adonis here. A few years later, the Adonis was shipwrecked with a shipment of coal. Thankfully, my ancestors were safe in America by then! There is also an online site with a list of German immigrants and the ship they sailed on! Much more information can be found with some online searches!

Great grandma’s family tree was a little gem, that contained a Lucky Find. Her simple fact of immigration in 1857 lead to finding a passenger list, information about the ship, which verifies her fact with documented sources, and their hometown of Hanover in Germany.

I love these types of Lucky Finds!

What is a “Lucky Find” and what do I do with it?

On this site, I’ll use the term Lucky Find several times. We all have them. It could be a little fact in the family tree that great grandma wrote from memory, that everyone else in the family has forgotten about. It could be a clue in a photo, when examined closer, that leads to a big discovery. It could be connecting with a cousin who is a DNA match, and they have information about an entire branch of the family tree that you are missing.

A Lucky Find is some seemingly small clue or fact that leads you to a bigger find. It may be coincidence, or your lucky stars. It doesn’t matter what brought it to us, what matters is what we do with it once we come across it.

I have a series on this blog called Lucky Find about some of the Lucky Finds I have come across that have helped me in my research. Luck Find is a tag word, and can also be used in the search box for this site. Read them, they’re lots of fun!

And you can let me know what Lucky Finds you have also come across!